At 12:08 Saturday afternoon, Roane County residents received quite a shock as a 4.3 magnitude earthquake centered eight miles west of Whitesburg, Ky was felt throughout East Tennessee. Whitesburg is located approximately 45 miles NNW of Kingsport.

Social media lit up after the event with people all across Roane County saying they felt the effects of the tremor. The quake was reported to have been felt as far south as Atlanta and as far north as Cincinnati, although no immediate damage has been reported.

It wasn’t the ending they were hoping for, but the Kingston Yellow Jackets walked off the field at Christian Academy of Knoxville (CAK) with their heads held high Friday night following a 23-7 defeat at the hands of the defending state champion Warriors in the second round of the TSSAA Class 3A playoffs.

Bucking the national trend, Roane County and the rest of the state went heavily for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in Tuesday’s election.
However, the solid local and state support wasn’t enough to help Romney achieve his goal of capturing the White House.
The former Massachusetts governor conceded the presidential race to Barack Obama around midnight Wednesday.

Improvements in math and graduation rate: Those were the two things Director of Schools Gary Aytes said he was most proud of about Roane County Schools 2012 state report card.
In the academic growth category, Roane County received a C in math in 2011.
In 2012 the county scored an A.
The graduation rate went from 78.2 percent in 2011 to 88.8 percent in 2012.
“That’s tremendous,” Aytes said.
Aytes said the disappointments were in reading/language, science and the ACT.

Two prior drug convictions mean trouble for John Wesley Goss in his federal drug case.
Goss, of Rockwood, was one of 23 people charged with oxycodone trafficking and money laundering conspiracies earlier this year.
“Deaths are alleged to have resulted from the use of oxycodone in connection with the drug conspiracy,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
The FBI referred to Goss as the lead defendant in the case.
According to court records, Goss was convicted twice in federal court in the 1990s on drug charges.

Punishment for sassiness today might earn a child a slap on the bottom or a few minutes in timeout.
For Jewish children who mouthed off to the Nazis or their collaborators, the consequences were much more severe.
“A boy, maybe 10 or 12, talked to the guards and sassed them,” Arthur Pais recalled. “They shot him.”
Pais is a survivor of the Kovno Ghetto and the Dachau Concentration Camp. The young boy being shot is among his most vivid memories from the Holocaust.

I’ll never forget the first election I covered.
I was a poor reporter, barely making more than minimum wage and trying to get by on it.
Ground zero for election coverage was the courthouse in Pineville, Ky., and Election Day was the highlight of my professional calendar.
The county clerk’s office — and many other contributors — brought in a feast of casseroles, meats, side dishes, snacks and desserts and shared willingly with all.